Nine Lives

By D. B. Borton

In the ninth book of The Cat Caliban Mysteries, detective-in-training Cat Caliban rushes into a burning house to save a litter of kittens and escapes with an armful of squirming fur and a charred skull. The experts say it's murder, but who was the victim? To an

• Language: English
• Publisher: Boomerang Books
• Release date: Oct 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781736351949

D. B. Borton

D. B. Borton is the author of two mystery series - the Cat Caliban series and the Gilda Liberty series - as well as the mysteries SMOKE and BAYOU CITY BURNING and the comic sci-fi novel SECOND COMING. She is Professor Emeritus of English at Ohio Wesleyan University.

Book preview

1

The stairs I was standing on fell away beneath my feet, and I dropped. I grabbed for anything that could break my fall. My hands clutched at a baluster and found purchase. I was yanked to a stop and hung suspended, coughing, smoke swirling around me, the fire roaring and crackling in my ears. Under my jacket, tiny bodies shifted and tiny needles pricked my skin through my sweatshirt. A feathery tail emerged from above the zipper and tickled my chin. I couldn’t look up. Ash and debris rained down on my head and shoulders. Any second now, a live ember would get caught in the hood of my sweatshirt and we’d be swallowed up by the inferno. One of my passengers was trying to crawl inside my bra, and if tiny teeth found something they mistook for a milk fountain, we were goners.

A voice shouted at me from below. Cat, you got to let go! it said. I got a couch under you to break your fall.

I tried looking down. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my partner, but I knew he was capable of stretching the truth if he thought it was for my own good.

But my eyes were bleary with tears and a cloud of smoke obscured everything. I coughed and clung.

Then the cloud parted and I could make out shapes — a piece of furniture, the dark figure of a man, and something small and four-footed, pacing. The mama cat, ears swiveling in my direction as if she could hear something under the roar of the fire.

Then she leapt for the enormous tapestry that hung on the wall in the stairwell, reaching from the second floor down to the first, and began climbing toward us. It was already smoldering. Now or never.

I kicked my feet out and launched myself at the wall, scrabbling at the heavy fabric. The impact sent shockwaves through my cargo and I felt them as a writhing mass just above my waistband. As I clutched at the tapestry, I felt it slowly give way. The panic-stricken mama cat, trapped between my chest and the wall, pressed against her babies but separated from them by layers of fabric, flailed and cut a scimitar slash down my cheek and neck. I coughed and clutched.

Then we slid down the wall and landed in a heap of fur and fabric. Strong arms lifted me to my feet and pulled me, my head still shrouded, trailing tapestry like a coronation train. I stumbled over something that might have been a doorsill and felt a change in the air and then the softer ground beneath my feet. Out here, there were shouts and mechanical sounds, and the rushing of water added to the cacophony of fire noises.

The fabric was pulled back and my head popped out. I felt the heat of the flames against one cheek and the cool night air against the other.

Moses tapped my shoulder, I’m going for a paramedic.

I nodded and sank to my knees, coughing. I fumbled for my zipper, unzipped, and released a shower of kittens. Then I collapsed fully and lay on my back, trying to fill my lungs with air. A blurry shape in my peripheral vision resembled a mama cat who was taking inventory and licking her brood with the angry intensity of a mother who’s almost lost them.

Then a new shape materialized, skinny, tailless, and human. It squatted next to me.

You okay, M-m-miz Cat? it said.

I nodded.

It continued to study me. Wh-what that? it said, and extended an arm.

I tried to speak and failed. I tried again. Cat scratch, I croaked.

No, it said, n-not that. Wh-what that?

I turned my head to follow the direction of the pointing finger, blinked to clear my vision, and looked into the blackened eye sockets of a skull.

2

I saw it, Moses, I said. I saw the body burning.

Moses picked up my hand and guided it to my face. His bifocals glinted in the flickering light from the flames. Put the mask back on, Cat, and breathe. Plenty of time for dead bodies later.

I lowered the mask. It wasn’t exactly the body I saw burning, it was —. I closed my eyes and tried to visualize what I had seen. My voice was hoarse and I wondered whether it was intelligible on the receiving end.

He pressed the mask to my face again. Breathe. He adjusted the blanket across my shoulders. It released a musty smell that was quickly swamped by the stench of burning wood. I coughed and lowered the mask.

It was a skeleton — that’s what I saw. The dark outline of a skeleton against the flames. Just a ribcage, neck, and skull. I was trying to convey how macabre and grotesque this sight had been when I was seized by another coughing fit. I struggled to talk through it. But how did the skull follow me outside?

Moses pressed the mask to my face again. You must’ve dragged it out on your train. He nodded at the expanse of now-wet tapestry that had puddled around me.

You don’t think there was somebody alive in there when the fire started? I held the mask away from my face but my throat was so raw I wasn’t sure he could understand me. They were standing up when I saw them. You don’t think —.

He pressed the mask to my face again. No, I don’t think. Now stop talking and breathe.

A perky paramedic appeared then and squatted next to me on the ground. She seized my chin in her hands and turned my cheek toward the light from the fire. I winced as the skin tightened against the gash cut by a frantic claw. The strobe light from the ambulance made me blink again. I can see that you pissed somebody off. Too bad Halloween’s already past. You would’ve made an impressive pirate. Now, let me have a look at that arm. On a scale of one to ten, how bad does it hurt?

I looked down at the arm, which responded to all the attention by waking up to make itself felt.

Twelve, I said. Then, spotting the scissors she was brandishing, I said in alarm, What are you doing?

Try to keep your arm straight and keep breathing through your mask. She’d already made the first incision.

This is my new jacket! I found it in the bargain basement at Armitage’s.

With her free hand, she guided the mask back to my face. Maybe they’ll have another one.

I opened my mouth to object when a wave of pain engulfed me and dragged me under.

When I opened my eyes again, she was fastening a clip to a beige-colored bandage that wrapped my arm like a sausage casing. The arm felt oddly detached from my body, which registered its pain as a dull throbbing. I was more acutely aware of the band that was holding the mask in place where it pressed my left ear flap down. I winced and reached up with my free hand to adjust it. That was when I noticed that Moses had been replaced again by my teenaged pal Leon.

Ten long fingers waved in front of my eyes. C-c-can you see m-me, M-miz Cat?

I’m not blind, Leon, I said grumpily, lifting the mask, though to tell the truth the world looked pretty bleary right now and my eyes stung and swam.

That’s g-good, ’cause you a hero, M-m-Miz C-Cat. You saved that m-mama c-c-cat and six b-b-baby kittens.

The mama cat had saved three kittens on her own, but I didn’t bother to correct him. I stuck the mask to my forehead like a baby unicorn’s horn. That’s nice, Leon. Maybe they’ll put that on my tombstone.

Wrong thing to say. Leon’s worried face hovered inches from mine. Y-y-you ain’t g-going to d-d-die, M-miz C-cat. He said it with forced conviction, but I heard the unvoiced addendum: are you?

I felt bad for him. He was the one who had gotten me into this, flagging me down like an air raid warden while I was out for a walk, his tongue tangled in emotion. He’d opened one hand to show a tiny kitten cupped in his palm. Its eyes weren’t open but its mouth was, and it seemed to share his distress. He’d dragged me up the sidewalk to the back of an imposing Victorian house and gestured. I’d seen a movement in the leaves of a trellis against the wall and a small cat emerged, a second tiny kitten dangling from her mouth.

Then I’d smelled the smoke. I’d followed Leon’s pointing arm up to where a plume of smoke was curling above the roof and I’d noticed a flickering glow in an upstairs window. The cat had dumped the kitten on the lawn between us and the house and was bounding toward the trellis again.

W-w-we g-g-got to h-h-h-help her, M-miz C-c-cat.

You stay with the kittens, I’d told him. See if you can find a neighbor to call the fire department. Have you knocked on the door?

N-n-nobody ever h-h-home in that h-h-house, he’d said. I didn’t ask how he knew. As a local business entrepreneur selling everything from godawful greeting cards and wrapping paper to chocolate bars and odd job services, Leon knew everything there was to know about the neighborhood. He probably knew how many kittens had been born in the house, but there was no time to ask. I’d run toward the house.

At the foot of the fire escape, I’d hesitated. This was 1987 and the house had probably been built at the end of the last century. As I’d looked up at the fire escape, I’d seen what could have been a hundred years’ worth of rust clinging to its surface. The mama cat had already climbed a nearby trellis and leapt gracefully to the fire escape. But would it hold me? Only one way to find out. I’d sprung for the bottom rung, closed my eyes against the shower of rust and ash it released, and begun climbing.

I’d dashed up to the third floor and followed the mama cat down a smoke-filled hall and upstairs to an attic. She’d snatched up the nearest kitten and run while I scooped up the rest of them, tangled in an old blanket she’d arranged on the attic floor. But my exit had been cut off by smoke and a tongue of flame, and I’d been forced to find the interior stairs down — the back stairs to the second floor, and then the main stairs to the entry hall, where my rescuers were waiting with the mama cat below.

Looking at Leon’s worried face now, I was reminded that with his big heart, he would grieve as much and feel as responsible for a dead kitten as for me, and I loved him for it. I sighed. Not tonight, Leon. Looks like I’ll make it.

That’s good, he said, ’c-cause I haven’t d-delivered y’all Thanksg-giving c-c-cards yet.

The cheerful medic was helping me sit up. That went okay, but I was pretty light-headed and it hurt to look up, so I didn’t.

Can I t-take your p-pitcher, M-m-miz Cat? I g-got me a new c-c-camera. My b-brother Charles say it’s a instant c-camera, you jus’ point and sh-shoot, don’t n-need to know n-nothing ’bout t-taking pitchers. I’m g-g-going to t-take pitchers all around the n-neighborhood, maybe m-make a newspaper. This b-be my first b-b-big story.

At this, my dizziness resolved into a painful throb. I took off the mask and croaked, Not enough light, Leon.

No, no, it’s c-c-cool. G-got a flash on it.

I was blinded by light and then little blue bubbles swam on the insides of my eyelids. Belatedly, the damn mask slipped down to cover my eyes. I yanked it down to my chin and gave in to a coughing fit.

Next to appear in my line of vision were a pleated navy hem over sagging knee socks and sneakers with little rainbows on the sides.

Mama brung you a box for your kitties, Leon, a new voice said, female and somewhere south of ten years old. And the fireman say somebody better get those kitties out the way before somebody step on ’em or the mama cat kill somebody.

Freed of the distraction when Leon went off to retrieve the box, I felt the sting of something cold and wet against my slashed cheek.

Ow! I yelped. Don’t you have a local anesthetic to use first?

"That was the anesthetic, said my perky tormentor. I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks, but you should have a doctor look at it to be sure. When was your last tetanus shot?"

I was saved from having to respond when a new face descended into my line of sight. The way it moved back and forth as its owner shook his head made me a little dizzy and I closed my eyes.

It’s not my fault, I said.

No, he said, I don’t guess it is. It’s a gift. We got cadaver dogs can’t match your record.

Lieutenant Rap Arpad of the Cincinnati homicide squad squatted on the ground in front of me. He was wearing jeans, an FOP basketball team sweatshirt, and sneakers. Even in casual clothes, he managed to look smartly dressed and I didn’t spot a trace of ash against his coffee-colored skin.

I frowned at him. It’s not your case?

Not yet, he said. Maybe not ever. All we got so far is a skull, and not a recent one at that, by the look of it. That may be all there is. Folks collect all kind of curious things. Be a long time before the fire investigators can get in there to see if there’s more.

There will be more, I said and told him what I’d seen.

Okay, he said. If they find the rest, it’s going to take some time before they can put all the pieces together and make a guess at cause of death.

He shifted uncomfortably on his haunches, then grinned at me. But see, that’s where I’m ahead of the game. Whenever you find the body, I know it’s going to mean more work for me.

He leaned in closer. I got a request. Tomorrow the Bengals play Miami. Do me a favor and take the day off.

3

He was exaggerating, of course. I hadn’t found a dead body in months. And he made it sound like collecting dead bodies was a hobby of mine. But I’m not a hobbyist or a necrophiliac. I’m a detective-in-training.

I’d spent most of sixty-two years serving time as an indifferent housewife and mediocre mother. So when my husband Fred had died three years ago, I’d wanted a change. After assessing my skills and interests, I’d decided to become a detective. To help with cash flow, I’d sold my suburban house and bought a small apartment building in Northside, which neighborhood residents like to consider one of Cincinnati’s transitional neighborhoods, though what it’s transitioning to is anybody’s guess. Two out of three of my kids thought I was nuts.

The building, once known by the aspirational name of the Patagonia Arms, was now known by its residents and neighbors as the Catatonia Arms. My first tenant, Kevin O’Neill, had come with the building. As a long-standing bartender at Arnold’s downtown, Kevin was a magnet for information and an early enthusiast for my new career. He was also an occasional supplier of illegal firearms to his landlady. Shortly after I arrived, two prospective tenants had their tour cut short by the discovery of a dead body in one of the upstairs apartments. They took the other one. This gave me a legal advisor in Alice Rosenberg, who worked at legal aid, and an Amazonian martial artist and heavy lifter in Melanie Carter, her partner, who worked as a potter. The final apartment was taken by a retired cop named Moses Fogg, who had finally caved in earlier this year and secured his private investigator’s license so that I could work under his supervision and get my own. We were still working through the details of the Fogg-Caliban partnership, a process that entailed a lot of spirited discussion liberally spiced with grumpiness on both sides. The other residents of the Catatonia Arms were all four-footed: my three cats Sophie, Sadie, and Sidney and Moses’s small beagle Winnie.

This goes a long way toward explaining the dead bodies in my life. I had wanted excitement, and in the two years since I had begun my training, I’d gotten it.

Between the Saturday night of the fire and the following Wednesday night, nothing much happened. The memory of the fire was fading faster in the neighborhood than the odor of smoke and the coating of ash on sidewalks, cars, trash cans, and swing sets. Neighbors grumbled, but Northside was hardly Chernobyl or even Baghdad, which Iranian missiles were pounding daily, according to reports. But you couldn’t look at all that ash without wondering what personal treasures had produced it and feeling thankful that the treasure wasn’t yours. On my walks around the neighborhood, I saw that somebody had covered the site, first with a plain blue tarp mounted on poles and later with a large orange tent that enclosed the ruins and zipped up the sides. Before the view had been obstructed by the orange tent, I could tell that most of the walls on the northeast side of the house were still standing. The contents of that first-floor room, which looked like a library, might be salvageable, I speculated, if they hadn’t been ruined by smoke and water. The bedroom above looked to be in worse shape. While the blue tarp was still up, I noticed a cop car parked on the street next to the site and wondered what the cop on guard duty was doing to keep himself awake. Once the orange tent went up, I noticed an armed security guard on patrol. Signs posted in the yard warned potential trespassers that the site was under twenty-four-hour surveillance.

I was on one of these walks at dusk one night when I saw a man surveying the scene. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and I couldn’t see him well. I could just make out his profile under the hood and I had the impression that he wasn’t a young man. He wasn’t the first sightseer I’d encountered on the scene — the neighborhood was curious, after all. But most of the folks I’d spoken to had been couples or teenagers.

Not much to see, I observed when I was close enough.

No, he agreed. It’s a shame. I’d been right: not an old voice, but not a young one, either.

Do you know the family?

He shook his head. Just curious. And sad to see the old dowagers disappear.

It obviously hadn’t occurred to him that I might be an old dowager myself, but I let the silence stretch out of respect for his feelings. He didn’t seem inclined to look at me and that was just as well, even in the low light. He might have taken one look at my face and concluded that I looked like a woman who had entered a burning house to rescue kittens and fallen from a second-floor staircase.

Is it a total loss, do you know? he said. Looks like the roof is gone.

The first-floor library is relatively intact and some of the bedroom above it. But the roof, attic, and third floor are gone.

He shook his head. Shame, he said.

I heard a thump and a scuffle behind me and a muttered, Dang! We both started and turned, but couldn’t see anything in the gloom.

What was that? the man said.

Friend of mine.

I retraced my steps a few yards and found Leon on the ground, where he’d tripped over a tree root that was thrusting a knobby elbow up to crack the sidewalk and give the tree some breathing room. I heard a whistle and looked up to see a four-footed dark shape racing toward the man as he sauntered off.

I hooked Leon under the elbow with my good arm and hauled him up. Why are you tailing me? In spite of Leon’s many entrepreneurial enterprises, he seemed to have a fascination for detective work. I couldn’t complain; he had often been helpful to me as an operative. He was a cheerful companion to have along on a stakeout. Physical grace was not his strong suit, but he compensated with his knowledge of neighborhood affairs. Leon knew everybody and everybody knew Leon.

W-w-wasn’t you I w-was t-tailing, M-miz Cat. It was him. He looked after the retreating forms of the man and his dog.

And why were you tailing him?

’C-c-cause he got a f-fancy sport c-c-car parked over on Ch-chase, one I ain’t n-n-never see in this n-neighborhood.

Okay, I said. Fair enough. Maybe he’s a wealthy architect looking to get the contract to rebuild the house.

Then why d-d-don’t he p-park in f-front of it?

I shrugged, though I doubted Leon could see the gesture in the deepening gloom. Maybe he doesn’t want to appear too eager.

And I wondered if the house would be rebuilt, and if so, what the new house would look like.

The only other news I’d heard that was related to the fire had come in Leon’s daily bulletins on the kittens and mother cat, and the next day he had provided another installment.

Lil B-Bit, S-s-smoky, White S-sox, Tiger, and Leon all g-got they eyes open, b-b-but Runt’s eyes s-still c-c-closed. My b-brother Charles s-say she the s-smartest one, w-want to know w-w-what she g-getting into b-before she c-c-commit.

You named one of the kittens Leon? My voice had dropped several registers since the fire and my throat and chest still hurt. My bloodshot eyes made me look like a zombie.

I was sitting on the front steps at the Catatonia Arms, lubricating my throat with a beer between the mowing of the front yard and the mowing of the side yards. This late-season lawn mowing was a compromise that more or less satisfied all of the Catatonia tenants. Kevin didn’t care one way or the other about lawn mowing, as long as he didn’t have to do the mowing, but he cherished a weird nostalgia for the communal activity of raking leaves, which we now had in abundance. He thought we should all put on our sweaters and scarves and drink hot cocoa while our cheeks grew rosy and our fingers numb as we bonded over this group task. Al, despite her legal pragmatism, supported him in this fantasy of domestic cooperation. Her partner Mel, our local expert on organic gardening and our very own Eco Enforcer, was mostly concerned that the leaves end up in our compost pile. Moses had a sense of civic responsibility honed less by his years in law enforcement than by years of living in a proud, tidy neighborhood. I didn’t think people in this neighborhood had particularly high standards, but I acknowledged his shame when our paint started to peel or our front steps developed a crack or the weeds started taking over our back parking lot.